A federal judge has ordered Donald Trump’s administration to restore legal status for tens of thousands of immigrants who used a Homeland Security smartphone app to enter the United States legally under Joe Biden.
Roughly 985,000 people used the CBP One app to seek legal entry before the Trump administration abruptly pulled the plug on the program immediately after taking office.
The app, which launched in 2023, allowed noncitizens seeking asylum and other immigration relief to schedule appointments at ports of entry before arriving at the U.S. border, where they then could obtain humanitarian parole, a temporary legal status that allows recipients to legally live in the country while their cases played out.
But last year, after ending CBP One, the Trump administration terminated parole for virtually every person who used the app to enter the country, leaving tens of thousands of immigrants vulnerable to arrest and removal.
Massachusetts District Judge Allison Burroughs determined on Tuesday that those blanket cancellations, which were carried out in mass emails telling recipients to leave the country, were unlawful.
Burroughs has ordered the Trump administration to restore legal status to all impacted members of the class-action lawsuit who received emails from the government that their parole was terminated.
The administration is expected to appeal.
People who entered the country using the app were generally given two-year terms of parole, during which immigrants applied for work authorization and other benefits.
But last year, DHS threatened those immigrants with arrest, severe fines and forced removal from the country if they didn’t leave on their own, according to Homeland Security. Those who refused to leave will be “permanently barred from reentry,” the agency told The Independent at the time.
The app was the only way people living outside the country could request an appointment at the U.S.-Mexico border to begin their asylum claims and immigration paperwork before they got there but was falsely characterized by Trump and his allies as a fast track for illegal immigration.
On January 20, hours after Trump entered office, a notice on the app’s website said that the app was “no longer available” and all appointments were “canceled” without notice.
At ports of entry across the southern border, where hundreds of people were lined up for their appointments, they all received the same message: “Existing appointments through CPB One are no longer valid.”
Roughly 270,000 people on the other side of the border were trying to make it to their previously scheduled appointments when the app shut down.
“It is time for you to leave the United States,” a message to CBP One users said. “Again, DHS is terminating your parole. Do not attempt to remain in the United States — the federal government will find you. Please depart the United States immediately.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “has full authority to revoke parole,” a spokesperson told The Independent last year. “Canceling these paroles is a promise kept to the American people to secure our borders and protect national security.”
The agency then renamed the app CBP Home and instructed immigrants who used the program to deport themselves instead.
Tuesday’s decision “brings long-awaited relief after months of fear and uncertainty,” according to Carlina Velásquez, president of the Venezuelan Association of Massachusetts.
“With just an email, the Department of Homeland Security stripped our immigrant families, neighbors and workers of their parole status, causing immense fear, instability and disruption to our society,” according to Georgia Katsoulomitis, director of Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, among the groups that sued to reverse the Trump administration’s policy.
“Their parole status and their ability to live in the United States has finally been restored” she said.
The Independent has requested comment from Homeland Security.
Since taking office, the president has effectively “de-legalized” tens of thousands of immigrants who were previously following immigration laws until the administration’s actions upended their status.
In addition to thousands of CBP One app users, the administration has also moved to cancel Temporary Protected Status for more than 1 million people, while thousands of people with pending immigration cases who showed up for their court-mandated hearings and appointments have been arrested moments after arriving.
Those reversals have radically expanded a pool of “undocumented” people who have become easy targets for arrest.
Legal challenges are underway in several courts against the administration’s attempts to revoke Temporary Protected Status for several countries that are facing urgent humanitarian crises, natural disasters and political and economic turmoil.
